Phosphate ester and quaternary amine compounds are well known and have been widely used for many years for a variety of applications including those requiring surfactant properties. Known phosphate esters do not generally exhibit any antimicrobial characteristics, and while quaternary amine compounds are known in general to exhibit antimicrobial activity, such compounds are extremely irritating and thus have limited usefulness in personal care and cosmetic products. More recently, various betaine-type derivatives having, in general, quaternized alkyl amine groups and at least one phosphorus-containing anion in the molecule referred to hereinafter as "synthetic phospholipids", have been disclosed and suggested as, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,215,064, 4,233,192 and 4,380,637 to Lindemann et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,209,449, 4,336,385 and 4,503,002 to Mayhew et al., and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,243,602, 4,283,542 and 4,336,386 to O'Lenick et al. These synthetic phospholipids are suggested as exhibiting an outstanding combination of surfactant characteristics as well as being well tolerated by human tissue, i.e., they exhibit exceptionally low ocular irritation and oral toxicity. While these known phospholipids have been found useful as surfactants in a variety of personal care, household cleaning and the like products, such products also require the incorporation of antimicrobial preservatives to inhibit microbial spoilage and increase shelf life, and there is no suggestion that any of these compounds exhibit virucidal activity.